An hour before this contest closed I decided to participate so I rushed around the house to find something to shoot. Then I remembered my Bender action figure and I knew I had the answer to my problem. Long story short, I got my tripod slung down low so I could get a ‘looking way up' kind of perspective. The background is a bedroom wall in the basement with light coming in through the east window. Kind of looks like a hazy sky, which worked out perfect.

- Joel Dearing

I bought some Hot Wheels cars at the dollar store to use for this challenge. I ended up putting them out on my driveway. Nothing too special in this story except my neighbors probably thought I was strange taking pictures of what looked like me taking pictures of my driveway since the cars were so small.

For this shot I used a die cast 747 I got when I was a kid. My dresser is almost black with a dark piece of glass on top. I thought this would be a great backdrop for my scale airplane to give it a showroom kind of feel. The camera was pretty much level with the edge of the dresser to get a lower, more realistic angle. For lighting I used a diffuser pretty much directly above in order to hide the less detailed pieces like the landing gear and also give it that showroom hangar look.

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- Mike Stuchlak

When I heard about this photo challenge I went over to my parents house and searched in my old room for some model cars, motorcycles, boats whatever I could find. I came across this model Harley Davidson motorcycle in an old dresser. Out of all the items it was the best one for this challenge.

So I decided to disregard that tip about using a plain background. I set up my lil' Murcielago on a shoe box in front of a picture displayed on my computer monitor. Faux-sunlight provided by desk lamp.

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Canon 7d, Tamron Macro at 28mm, 1/40 sec., f/7.1, ISO1600

- Angelico Tolentino

T3i 18mm/5.6 ISO200 3.2 Sec

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I have started collecting toy car this year and this is the one I like the most so far.
It is so nice to played around with my favourite car and take a photo of it.

-Jospeh Tsoi

This car is from the Lewis Hamilton Collector's Edition from Hot Wheels-It is one of the few, but most detailed, of the models that I own, and I knew it would probably work the best for this shooting challenge. The reflective base is due to red painted Plexi, with black Plexi in the back. I tried using a bit of smoke under the model to give it a car show vibe. It was lit from the top with a small bank of LEDs, and from the front with a small flashlight. No photoshop was used, except to convert it to the proper file sizes.

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Canon 5D Mark III, 70-200mm. ISO 400, F / 14, 1/2 second exposure.

- Matt Genuardi

This was a fun challenge that I got some others involved for and we had a great time doing it. First I went over to my friend Christians house where he had a ton of diecast cars for me to use. Then I went over to my other friend Arthur who had some more diecast cars for me to use. In all, I took several pictures of about 25 different diecast model cars. And because of that, the hardest part of this challenge was selecting my favorite picture to submit because so many of the pictures turned out great. In the end, I chose the silver Lamborghini Gallardo from my friend Arthur because from the tires to the taillights, I think it looked the most realistic. To take the picture, I used my iPhone 5.

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- Jeff Ring

The story behind this specific photo is kind of cool. Firstly we shot it with a Canon 60D camera with Sigma EX 18-50 lens, low ISO about 300 with f/8 aperture and 1/200 shutter speed. We recreated a scene from back in the 1960-1970 when this "SoCal" hotrod was pushed to the limits on Bonneville salt flats. The idea is that it was a must for the photo to look old school and realistic, so we shot the model on a flat surface with flour carefully poured all around it so it would look like salt flat. After that we cropped the background, replaced it and did some post processing trickery to get it look like that.

- David Mirov

I've had this little model Ducati 848 sitting on my desk for some time now (a guy can dream...), and when I saw this shooting challenge I figured it'd be a great time to pull out my criminally underused off-camera lighting.

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For the setup I laid out the quilted liner of my riding jacket, with a small softbox hung directly overhead about 10 inches up and cranked up to full power. I masked it off with a black card to create a narrow little band of light. The model was not very cooperative; I ultimately wound up using a binder clip on the rear wheel to keep it standing. I lit the headlight from inside with a fiber-optic audio cable pointed at a reading light.

Minimal touch-up in Photoshop, mostly for dust specks (which look enormous on a 5" long model!)

- C. Robert Hyman

As an avid model car collector and amateur photographer this week's shooting challenge was spot on. I didn't have my main camera handy so I was forced to use an ancient Sony Mavica. I took this shot of the gorgeous 1/18 Ferrari 250 GT SWB by CMC Diecast in the nearby park. I was lying on the ground trying to recreate a point of view that would simulate a real car photo. Fortunately the old Sony didn't let me down even though it store pictures on a very unreliable mini CD (!) and I'm pretty pleased with the results.

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- David Bello

Batman returning to the Tumbler.

I know the instructions said to light things up big time, but Batman in broad daylight? I waited for dark, turned off all the lights aside from a single desk lamp aimed at a wall for indirect light. Shot on a Nikon D200 at 120mm zoom, ISO 400, F/29. LONG exposure requiring a tripod and several attempts since the cat kept wanting to explore what I was doing and messing up the exposure.

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- Patricia Jemison

I figured EVERYONE was going to be shooting die cast cars, I wanted to do something different. So, I took my Art Asylum Enterprise E and shot it. This was on my Nikon D200 with a 55-200mm lens at ISO 400. I was zoomed to 95mm. All I did for post was standard sharpening and a bit of darkening. The background is one of the Hubble Deep Field that I borrowed from public sources.

- Joe Burke

Started off by teaming her against a black t-shirt,but somehow result didn't appeal to me much.
I decided to put her in front of a well lighted background on a screen,and so began the search for a nice,night city backdrop.Found a couple and kept trying out different combinations,until finally settling for this one,against my 2008 R6,1:18.

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Could not find adequate lighting for the bike,hence settled for the silhouette.

Alien Robot Attack! I found the alien robot in the toy section at Wal-Mart, paired with my favorite red Matchbox car. The frightened lady inside is from my model train set. I shot it on my deck railing so I could get the camera low enough. I liked the ominous clouds, and the sunset colors look like fires or explosions in the background. The robot's eye was created using Topaz star effects. The attack was shot with my Olympus Pen E-P1, kit lens (14-42mm), zoomed in about half way as you recommended, f/14, ISO 200, three exposures to get the full dynamic range.

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- Peter Welch

It all started when i came face to face with the elephant. I wasn't looking for him, he found me. The textures and details were so vivid, I couldn't let it get away without taking a picture.

I didn't want this beast in a non discript background, a wild beast needs to be free. In it's presence, twigs become trees, pebbles boulders. I was lucky to catch this fabled animal in its natural habitat,

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Shot with Canon 7D, 100mm macro lens at f/11, 1/160sec ISO 3200. Natural cloudy lighting, as one would find in the african savana.

- Mark Lepage

I took this picture on my desk with a halogen table lamp as a light source - in front of the model and off to the left. My camera was on a tripod and positioned just around table height to give the perspective of the shot being taken from ground level. I "borrowed" the model train and track from an uncle (I put it back where I found it after the shoot) - a model train aficionado with several models still sitting in storage for lack of space. The chimney smoke is actually a bunch of ripped up cotton balls that I hope my wife won't miss and the blue sky background is a large sheet of chart paper from a craft store.

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I desaturated the picture and played around with the contrast in Photoshop, but otherwise didn't have to make any adjustments to the exposure or sharpness. Sony Nex-5 with the 18-55 kit lens at 26mm (APS-C sized sensor - so effective focal length is 39mm), f/8 aperture, 0.8 sec exposure at ISO 200. Manual focusing since my auto-focus just refused to lock on to the numbers on the front of the model. I deliberately went with a shallow depth of field - I think it affords a sense of motion and also makes the train look larger and less like a model.

- Mohit Arora

Back to the Future

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So for my entry this week I wanted to try and create a photo of a car that I probably would never see in real life, so after I read this post I knew exactly what I wanted to shoot. My die-cast DeLorean! This car is a 1:24 scale model, I used a 16 inch light tent with a plain white back drop (obvious). I used two cowboy studio table top lights with 5000 kw day light bulbs, I placed both of these lights above the tent at an even angle so that I got an even tone of shadows under the car. The shot itself took a lot of trial and error to get the right balance of white in the background in contrast with the light gray of the car itself, overall I believe I took around 40 to 50 shots before I was satisfied with this shot. I used my Nikon D5100 without flash, a 18-55mm VR 1:3.5-5.6G lens kit, my focal length was set to 36mm and I set the shutter speed to 1.3 seconds with an aperture of f/22, metering was set on center-weighted, and ISO 100.

- Paul O'Neill

I had been waiting for a challenge that I could do easily in my basement because I don't have much time due to school and this one was perfect because I have a bunch of die cast cars. I used one of my Mom's old cashmere sweaters for the background and a lamp for the lighting. I did all my editing in Picasa/Paint. Nikon D3100, 18-200mm lens, 1/5 sec., f/5 ISO Auto.

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- Terran Ray

Equipment: iPhone 5
Settings: Camera + Vibrant Effect

Story: I had recently constructed my R/C car and after looking at the contest guidelines, I feel like it was the perfect opportunity to turn this R/C car into a real car, using a camera of course. My main goal is to enter the contest, but I want to fool my friends into thinking I got a Nissan GT-R!

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- Shrey Gupta

I have been collecting vinyl toys for a little over two years now. Most people prefer to lock there figures up behind a glass wall, whereas I prefer to go out and actually play with my mine. I just moved to a new area and every day on my way to work I see this old vintage sign that reads "Stephen's Meat Products." I've always wanted to take a shot of it, but wanted to give it some sort of context. So for this assignment I grabbed one of my toys and stuck him under the sign. I used a 15mm fisheye on my Canon 5D MKII to really exaggerate the perspective. I also shot low pointing up to make the figure seem semi-life-sized. Settings on the camera were ISO100 f/8 at 1/160. Sausages anyone?

I attempted to make my Bioshock Big Daddy statuette as menacing as possible. In order to do so, I took inspiration from the clair-obscur style of the promotional shots of Tom Hardy/Bane for TDKR; using a flat back background and lighting select parts of the model very strongly. I shot it from a very low angle to make it look as if it were pouncing the viewer.

As a final touch I painted the dried blood and glowing red lights on it's dome (As they also glow in the game when a Big Daddy is attacking you) in Photoshop.

Setup:
I used a semi-gloss Kodak photo paper for the backdrop to set the car on. I set my camera on my tripod slightly above the car and tilted the camera roughly 20 degrees. I didn't use any special lighting. It was shot under the florescent light of my awesome dorm room with the shade pulled over the window. The entire setup was done on my end table. Very shifty...

- Eric Anderson

Canon T2i Canon 15-85mm @85mm f10 30sec ISO100

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Wanted to honor the soldiers we still have in action fighting the good fight, and to commemorate my enlisting into the U.S. Army. Used a realistic scale figurine placed in the yard at night with tungsten lighting. Cropped, contrast adjustment, white balanced and vignetted.

- Bobby Triantos

I don't have any super detailed scale models for this challenge, so my toy test vehicle from Epcot would have to do. However, I do have a homemade tabletop studio that I use for my Etsy shop which would be perfect for this. And of course, knowing that part of photography is knowing when to break the rules, I took that natural light and tripod suggestion and tossed it. I still achieved the invisible background, and the shadow looks like it might be cast by a whole lot of really nice shop lights.

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Photo was taken with a Nikon D5000 with an 85mm lens, 1/200 at f/32 and a remotely triggered flash directly over the car. I actually blurred the final image just a bit, because having the near side in super duper focus tilted it more to the fake side.

- Matt Owen

I recently grabbed myself an SLR, and figured "What better way to challenge myself than a Giz shooting challenge?" So I set out looking for a model to 'make real'.
After hunting around, the only thing I could find was an old toy from a Kinder Egg... Challenge Accepted! I decided that since this wasn't exactly a photo-realistic model in the first place, I'd go for a low key shot to obscure the more telling details.
I set my camera up in front of my desk and laid the model on top of a black microfiber cloth and a black folder behind to give the nice dark surroundings. Since I haven't had the chance to obtain an external flash, I had to resort to holding a piece of card in front of the pop-up flash, in such a way that it blocked direct line-of-sight to the model. And instead, reflected only off the top part of the (glossy) black folder in the background. This gave the model the nice 'to-be-revealed' car ad effect I was after.
Canon 600D (T3i), 18-55mm Kit Lens, f/32, 1/13s ISO 200